The Repopulation - Latest Build Notes and Shots

The highlights of this patch include performance optimizations, a population pass on Plymouth, a new conning system, an improved interaction system, rare NPCs who offer new missions to the first player who discovers them, and the addition of a number of new chain abilities. Some of these abilities are solo chains, and others are geared towards groups. When you commit certain actions, it will create openings for more combinations to be completed by yourself or allies for a short period of time. Certain other attacks will gain additional effects based on these openings. This is explained more in the Effects and Abilities section. This patch also sees improved visuals, full screen fx, and animation updates for both players and NPCs.

Anyone seeking more information or who wants to help out in the alpha test can visit: therepopulation.com

Effects and Abilities

- We've added a slew of new openings and chain skills. How our chains work in general, is that you first need an opening for them. This can be made by any other character performing a skill that creates the opening, or by doing it yourself. There are now spells which will have additional bonus effects added to them if a certain opening is available. If the opening is not available, most of these skills will still do something, but it will be less effective than otherwise. The intention of these abilities is to make working together in a group rewarding if properly coordinated, and to also improve solo play effectiveness when done properly. It should be noted that the some chains are intended for solo players, and others are aimed at groups.
- Added a new debuffing effect that will cancel one or more random beneficial abilities on the target. There are varying levels of effectiveness on these abilities.
- The following abilities are now considered Defensive Posture abilities: Evasive Manuever, Defend Yourself, Defensive Stance, Defensive Focus, Raise Shield, Evade, Parry, Block, Hold the Line, Avoidance, and Hold Tight. These abilities will act as they have before, but will also create an opening for opponents to attempt to break through your defenses with certain abilities.
- The following abilities are now create a Motivated opening: Instill Rage, Mind Over Matter, and Will of Iron. This opening can be broken through by certain abilities.
- The following abilities now have a chance to create an off balance opening: Shove, Feign, Knockback, Warning Shot, Jab, Comeback Rally, Feign Stab, Roundhouse Kick, Startle Shot, Hold, and Feign Thrust. Some of these are more likely to knock your opponent off balance than others. Shove for example, has a very low chance.
- The following abilities now create a Bleeding opening: Puncture, Slice Throat and Kidney Puncture. Frag Grenades will also create this opening. This opening makes the target vulnerable to bleeding chain attacks.
- The Martial Tactics ability: Knockback, had its reuse time increased, but has a good chance to knock your opponent off balance in compensation.
- Fixed a bug that was causing Evasive Manuever to only be usable on others.
- Uppercut, Blindside and Overpowering Attack will now do additional damage if your opponent is off balance.
- Butt Attack, Pistol Whip, Spraying Assault will now do additional damage if your opponent is knocked down.
- Twirling Axe and Hurricane Slash now have an additional chance to knockdown your opponents if they are already off balanced.
- Spraying Fire, Arrogant Taunt, and Flanking Assault will now have a chance to remove a motiviational effect from your opponent if they have recently been motivated.
- Added the Combat Healing based ability: Extinguish Flame. This ability can only be used on Burning targets, and will attempt to put out the fire. It has a small Momentum cost.
- Added the Combat Healing based ability: Stop The Bleeding. This ability can only be used on Bleeding targets, and attempts to patch them up as best it can in a quick fashion. It has a small Momentum cost.
- Added the Knife Tactics Ability: Open Wound. This ability attempts to target a bleeding body part of your opponent, and if one is available it will attempt to widen the cut.
- Added the Sword Fighting Tactics Ability: Target Wound. This ability attempts to target a bleeding body part of your opponent, and if one is available it will attempt to widen the gash.
- Added the Fencing Tactics based ability: Break Defenses. This ability attempts to break through an opponents defensive posture, cancelling a defensive buff. It costs a small amount of Momentum.
- Added the Polearm Tactics based ability: Pick Through Defense. This ability attempts to break through an opponents defensive posture, cancelling a defensive buff. It requires a moderate amount of Momentum but is available earlier than Break Defenses.
- Added the Acrobatics based ability: Regain Balance. This ability will only be usable when you are knocked off balance, and will attempt to recover from it immediately.
- Added the Assassination based ability: Bloodletting. This ability is only effective after you successfully use Assassinate, but will rip open a wound, causing additional damage if your opponent is already bleeding from the assassination attempt. If they are not already bleeding from Assassinate, this skill will not be very effective. The combination of Assassinate and Bloodletting is a deadly 1-2 combo punch, but each skill has a long reuse time, and in order to land both blows you will need to sneak up from behind, while in stealth, and successfully land both attacks.
- Added the Martial Tactics Ability: Rip Open Wound. This ability attempts to target a bleeding body part of your opponent, and if one is available it will attempt to further open the cut. Unlike the Open Wound and Target Wound abilities, this deals heavy instant damage where they deal damage over time. It costs Momentum to use however.

General
- We've added a conning system to make it easier for player to understand how difficult their current target would be to defeat. This works by using an up and down arrow system. If a monster has a single up arrow for example they would be a difficult encounter, where a triple up arrow would indicate a very dangerous opponent that should be avoided. Two down arrows would indicate an opponent that should be no problem. There is also an indicator for if the monsters are considered group or raid mobs, that appears as little human heads. The conning system isn't going to be perfect, as each player will can have vastly different skillsets. However, it should provide players with a ballpark range, that was not available before.
- You will no longer be able to receive skill gains from combat from trivial opponents. You will know if your opponent is trivial if they have 3 down arrows when you target them.
- NPCs can now interact with multiple players at a single time.
- We've doubled the maximum view distance for shapes based objects. However, we have also implemented a system which makes those adjustments networked, meaning that you can now gain network performance by lowering your maximum view distance, if you are having lag issues.
- Player carried Light sources have undergone some tweaks. They should look much better now, and can be multiple colors. In the future we may add in flashlight effects, as well.
- Made adjustments to the run or walk speed animations based on how quickly your character is moving.
- The delay to speak to an NPC who you have just spoken to has been reduced from 20 to 3 seconds.
- Updated to v1.01 of the Torque 3D engine.
- Fixed a bug that was occuring sometimes with our damage pop ups.
- The inventory tooltips should now reflect the recent click changes.
- Added new character achievements and NPC professions.
- Made some internal editor improvements which should improve our zone building workflow.

Graphics
- Night Vision, Bright Vision and Blindness had been disabled since we ported to Torque 3D. They have been re-integrated.
- The options menu now has a terrain distance slider. Slower systems can receive sizable performance improvements by reducing your visible distance in the options.
- Added new and improved maps.
- Plymouth has new trees, and more of them.
- Increased the number of shrub growths in Freedomtown.
- Added numerous new props to Plymouth City to diversify it a bit more.
- Added a new fallen twig terrain textures and groundcover to Plymouth.
- Added a new model for green area harvestable trees.
- Added another batch of new blended animations.
- We've tweaked our sky settings, and now use a Night time cubemap and have a moon.
- Fixed a bug that was causing groundcover shapes (not billboards though) to appear fully lit at night time.
- Added another round of blended animations to characters.

Items

- We've added the ability for items to create dialogs, give character flags, offer missions, or perform other similar actions.
- Added several new Books which add some of the backstory to the world.
- Added some new collectible lost and found items.
- Humanoid mobs can now very rarely drop reference manuals which can be read to gain a small increase of knowledge in a specific skill.
- Frag Grenades will now create a Bleeding opening.
- Flame Thrower attacks now create a Burning opening.

Missions

- Added a new type of mission. One-time completion missions are available from rare NPCs who will randomly spawn out in the wilderness. These NPCs will not appear very often. These NPCs will despawn when someone completes the mission. The title One-time Completion refers to the quest only being completable by one player before despawning, and does not mean that if you happen to luck into finding the quest giver for these quests more than once that you can not repeat it again. Some of these result in unique items and others offer special character flags that will could potentially open up new options for you later in your career. It should be noted that these quests do not appear in your Mission Helper, as a result of their dynamic nature.
- Added the following One-time Completion Missions: Family Heirloom, and Medic! The medic mission requires First Aid experience, where the Family Heirloom mission can be completed by anyone.
- NPCs that are currently needed in one of your missions will now have a denotation to the left of their name which indicates that you should speak to them. Not all missions support this, this is up to the generated mission template. They can define whether or not to show the icon. This is done so epic or higher end quests which want players to figure things out can do so, but for more menial tasks it should be easier to find the necessary NPCs now without having to rely on the tracker.
- We've given monsters the chance to drop rare items which they stole from colonists. If you find one of these items you can turn them in to the Lost and Found to collect a reward.
- The standard accept or yes option will always be the first option on missions. If there are optional (skill check) branches to a mission though, or if you don't wish to turn in a piece yet that you already have, then you will still need to select a different option. This change was done to make things easier for those who do not read English well.
- We've added the ability for missions to be obtained by using certain items.
- Wailing Chasm now has generated Camp Missions, similar to those found in Freedomtown and Plymouth. Camps will pop periodically, and one player will be assigned with a mission to destroy that particular camp. These are all timed missions and reward military experience, as well as the usual assortment of rewards.
- Fixed a bug with secondary skill up assignments.

World

- Added 5 new random special abilities to boss mobs. Our bosses choose from a random pool of over 130 special abilities.
- Added additional decals decorations to Plymouth, Freedomtown and Wailing Chasm.
- Occlusion blockers and portals have been placed throughout the world, in an attempt to maximize the frame rate on older systems. The performance gains should be noticable, particularly on slower systems.
- NPCs can now have be assigned numerous different idle animations. This is assigned on a per NPC basis.
- There are new NPC will will very rarely spawn in the world, and offer special static quests. When one player completes the quest the NPC will despawn.
- Freedomtown now has many more low level mobs in the area around the city.
- We've optimized the spawn point layouts in Plymouth and Freedomtown. There should now be a steadier progression of difficulty, and a more randomized element to the spawns.
- Added hovering NPC type text to many more NPCs in the world. This should make it easier to find what you are looking for.
- There are now mainframe computers in Freedomtown and Plymouth. These allow you to view the cities current technology levels, re-declare residency, and vote for the Mayor. Mayors are able to advance the cities technology levels.
- Turrets have had their damage doubled and their attack rates increased.
- Made some improvements to NPC pathing code. NPCs can now be flagged to do an ordered patrol of waypoints.
- The fallen section in the Lesoo Tunnels has been repaired.
- The Crafting Complex in Freedomtown is no longer puzzlingly bright at night time.
- You should no longer see monsters falling into position after they spawn.
- Added new Lost and Found NPCs to Plymouth and Freedomtown. These tie in to multiple missions and can be found near the Cloning Facilities.
- Added a Banker, Lost and Found, and Housing to Wailing Chasm. Housing can be found in all three control points, where the Banker and Lost and Found are only available in Pontoc.
- Added many new items to NPCs random drop tables.
- Made adjustments to the Lesoo populations in the Lesoo Caves and Tunnels.
- Lurkers have had their average difficulty slightly lowered.
- Brutes, Lingmaa, Setlang and Baroe have had their average difficulty slightly raised.
- Reduced the hit points of Training Bots.
- Mutated animals have had their difficulty levels significantly raised.
- Added a new, higher level variant of Vultures.
- Deluxe Training Bots (rare spawn in Training Grounds) have had their difficulty level reduced somewhat.
- The zone line between Wailing Chasm and Freedomtown has been fixed.
- Fixed a bug that was causing chasm hound pups and some robotic NPCs to not spawn.

UI

- We've added Con, Boss and Raid information to the shapenamehud. If you do not want this extra information, it can be disabled through the GUI Options Menu.
- NPC names should no longer appear beneath their heads.
- After dragging a clickable item to your actionbar, it should now reset back to its previous slot, instead of staying on your cursor.
- Fixed a bug in our object selection code that was making it very difficult to click on scaled objects. It should be much easier in general to click on monsters than it was before.
- Fixed a bug that was causing our custom cursors to not display.